National optical fibre network renamed as BharatNet

Under BharatNet, the committee expects retail broadband services should be available at prices below Rs 150 a month in poorer states.

ET Bureau|

Updated: Apr 02, 2015, 03.06 AM IST

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Under BharatNet, the committee expects retail broadband services should be available at prices below Rs 150 a month in poorer states.

NEW DELHI: The government has digitally connected 20,000 village panchayats across the country under the Digital India programme and has decided to overhaul the national broadband project programme, renaming it BharatNet.

The news comes a day after a committee set up by the PMO to analyse the structure of the national optical fibre network (NOFN), now BharatNet, which was initiated by the previous UPA regime, submitted its recommendations to the telecom and minister IT Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Under BharatNet, the committee expects retail broadband services should be available at prices below Rs 150 a month in poorer states and around Rs 250 per month in more economically advanced state, with speeds ranging between 2 Mbps and 20 Mbps for all households. It has further recommended on demand capacity to all institutions.

Interestingly, the government had previously envisaged broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbps. It will subsume all the ongoing and proposed broadband network projects taking the BharatNet project outlay to about Rs 72,000 crore.

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